Skookum Offices

The Project

Skookum provides engineered outcomes, ongoing support and service to the Wood, Biofuel and Bulk Handling sectors. They were looking to build a new office building for the Christchurch facility that spoke to the sustainability of the industry they serve.

The aim was to provide biophilic timber elements to complement the dark steel cladding on the exterior. Expressing the timber inside by using visual grade glulam beams and PLT ceilings creates a warm and inviting interior that invites the outside in.

80m2 of Mid Floor PLT 90mm
91m2 of Roof PLT 90mm
196 Lm of GL8 & GL10 Glulam beams & columns to make the portals.
Mass Timber Stairs

The Challenge

The wide range of coordination with beams to steel, and PLT floor + roof.
Planning and managing the build timeline, especially with a visual floor and ceiling.

Providing a solution that facilitated seamless integration of structural elements, floors, roof and stairs to enable a fast build and thereby minimise disruption to the day to day operations of the existing business operation elsewhere on the site.

Offsite Design facilitated the comprehensive fabrication model of the project and worked alongside the designers to optimise for efficient manufacture and true build-ability. This meant that all Woodspan OSM elements went together without a hitch when it came to assembly.

The Solution

The design team decided that using Woodspan exposed PLT roof and glulam beams, PLT floor system, Woodspan H3.2 exterior glulam columns and Woodspan MTStair was the perfect option.

PLT and Glulam products are proving to be ideal solutions for low-carbon designs, demonstrating that it is possible to achieve both eco-friendly and high-performing buildings without the usual compromises and allowed for an upfront carbon saving in this case, of 17,155 kgCO2eq.

Because Woodspan timber is laminated in the direction of the span and the grain, the resulting visual finish on panels and stairs as well as beams is unparalleled in terms of mass timber and is the natural choice for architects wanting a superior finish for exposed timber.

Originally proposed as an exposed floor and ceiling, in the end this was finished with a carpeted floor on top to reduce the foot traffic noise through to the ground floor.